Database - a collection of organized data that allows you to look up, edit or report on it.

Table - Stores information about one specific kind of item

Record - The rows in a table that contain information about a given person, product, or event.

Field - The columns in a table that contain a specific piece of information like the city, state, or phone number.

Query - The ability to access the data by asking questions. Getting out all the companies that are in a certain city, or all the clients with the last name of Smith.

Forms - Attractive layouts used for entering or looking up records in a table.

Reports - Attractive layouts used for printing out the data with sophisticated presentation.

Web Page - A SharePoint for information that is stored in Access so it can be seen on the web.

Primary Key - a unique identifier for a record. There can be only one. Every record must have a different value in a field that is set up to be a primary key. If it is a table of products and the PRODUCT ID is the primary key, no two records can have the same ID.

Data type - Specifying the type of data a certain field will hold. Access needs to know if you are going to work with a number, text, a time/date or a hyperlink.

Field Size - Specifying how large the field will be. Access needs to know how large a text box needs to be created to hold text type data.

Design view - A view that allows you to manipulate how data will be created, stored, and displayed on the screen and in reports.

Datasheet view - A view of a table that is much like a spreadsheet. It allows you to enter in your information quickly.

Report View - Once you create a report, you need to turn it to report view to preview it on the screen.

Form View - Once you create a form, you need to turn it to form view to enter data, or use if for lookup.

Form Layout - Once you create a form, you need to turn it to layout view if you wish to move items around on your form.

Report Wizard - A tool that allows you to create a report by simply choosing what table and fields in the table you want to display. The report is built for you very quickly.

A database is a collection of organized tables. Each table is a collection of related records. Each record gives information about one item and is made up of many fields. Each field is one specific piece of information.

In this figure you can see the Clients Table is open in the Access work area. It contains 10 records, one for each client. There are nine fields: Client number, Client name, Street Address, City, State, Zip Code, Amount Paid, Type of Advertisement, and Employee.

Before you start to create a database, there needs to be a lot of planning. The first question should be: What is the purpose of the database? I usually want to know, what do I want to be able to pull back out of the database. So I guess I work backwards from the reports to figure out what will need to be put in.

The yearbook staff need to keep track of their yearbook ad sales to the businesses in the community. In order to do this they will need to track the businesses of the community and what businesses have purchased ads, what types of ads they have purchased and if they have paid. They will also need to keep track of each student, in this case employee, to determine who has sold the ads.
The staff will need to keep track of two basic groups of data, the businesses and the yearbook staff members. For this example we will call the businesses - Clients, and the staff members - Employees.
For the clients we will need to know:

Each table needs to have a primary key. This is the one value in each table that can not be repeated, it is considered the look-up value. This field is used to easily access all the data for one record and usually has a short field length. For this example we will use the:

When you design a database you need to be able to tie the data together. In most databases you have one table that is used once and tied to many records in another table. In this example the Client is used once, and each client is tied to an employee. So, each record in the employee table is used many times. This is called a One to Many relationship.
Employee A works with

The point to using a database instead of a spreadsheet is the ability to link tables together. This is useful for reducing redundancy.
Redundancy is the repetition of the same data over and over again. For example if you are tying clients to employees, you would not want to have to tie the same employee name, address, city, state, and zip to every record. Instead you can link them both together with an employee number and store the data in separate files.
By storing the data in separate file it reduces the risk that data will not be updated properly. Think about if an employee moves and the employee data is in the same table as the clients. You would have to go through all the records that had that employee and change the same data for each record that employee works with.

Click on View and Design View
Click on OK
Then fill in the fields on the design view of the form to follow the structure of the table below. You will need to enter the field name, data type, and field size as the arrows above show.

Structure of the Client Table

Field Name

Data Type

Field Size

Primary Key

Client Number

Text

4

Yes

Client Name

Text

25

No

Street Address

Text

30

no

City

Text

20

no

State

Text

2

no

Zip Code

Text

5

no

Amount Paid

Currency

no

Type of Advertisement

text

20

no

Employee Number

text

2

no

Once you are done putting in the field definitions then you will need to put in the data.

Click on VIEW

Click on Datasheet View

Then you can enter the data just like a spreadsheet.
HINT: If you do not like entering the data this way you can click on FORM and and it will create a form for you to enter the data into a form.

Client Table Data

Client Number

Client Name

Street Address

City

State

Zip Code

Amount Paid

Type of Advertisement

Employee Number

ROLA

Rosken LLC Accountants

592 Main St Suite 1

Meeker

CO

81641

$40.00

Page Sponsor

KA

COAV

Coulter Aviation

921 Market Street

Meeker

CO

81641

$50.00

Business Card

DW

MEAI

Meeker Airport

921 Market Street

Meeker

CO

81641

$40.00

Page Sponsor

WS

BRLA

Brooks Laurie J Appraiser

889 Main Street

Meeker

CO

81641

$250.00

Full Page Ad

EJ

ROMO

Rocky Mountain Bowstrings

696 Main Street

Meeker

CO

81641

$50.00

Business Card

WS

ANTO

Ann Toney PC Attorney

PO Box 1022

Meeker

CO

81641

$40.00

Page Sponsor

EJ

ZABR

Zagar-Brown Trina K Attourney

685 Main Street Suite 5

Meeker

CO

81641

$150.00

Half Page Ad

KA

BOKE

Borchard Kent A Attourney

335 6th St #1

Meeker

CO

81641

$50.00

Business Card

KA

MECO

Meeker Collision Center

43904 Hwy 13

Meeker

CO

81641

$40.00

Page Sponsor

DW

NOAU

Northwest Auto

485 Market Street

Meeker

CO

81641

$50.00

Business Card

EJ

After you are done putting in all the data for the Clients you are ready to create the table for the employees and put in that data. You will follow the same steps as above.

The easiest way to create a form is to have the table open that you want the form to populate.

Click on the Create Tab

Go to the Forms Group

Click on FORM

The from is created and you are in layout view. You can move items around from this view, but when you are ready to enter data you will need to change to Form View.

Go to the HOME Tab

Click View

Click Form View

Start entering data.
If you want to look through the records then use the buttons at the bottom of the screen they are just like those on all the electric devices you all use today.
If you want to enter new data then click on the button that is the blue arrow pointing right with a star. Enter in the new data for the first field

Press TAB to go to the next field

Press SHIFT+TAB to go to the previous field

Press TAB at the end of the fields on the screen will save that record and bring you to the next empty record.